Upon An Empty Canvas
by melpi
Summary: 18 year old Tialya befriends a kind hearted Stormtrooper, upset when he has to leave his post in Bespin, Tialya conducts a plan to stow away on one of their ships. But her plan doesn't go accordingly as she sneaks into the wrong ship.   The Slave I.
1. Impossible Dreams

Impossible Dreams

Tialya squinted her eyes at the large canvas in front of her, carefully she added the last few details to her latest painting; exhaling she placed her brush carefully down onto the edge of her easel. She lifted her head from her canvas and gazed along the vast skyline of Bespin, it was very nearly midnight and the sky was painted a deep purple, the clouds were carefully placed slightly obscuring her view of the stars which were lightly scattered behind them. The lights from the city reflected off of the clouds, lining them with pale blues mixing with soft pinks and yellows. Tialya loved to paint, her life revolved around the paint brush ever since she was a child, she was always told she had a very special talent but to her she never saw it as something special, just more like a creative outlet. Her favourite things to paint were landscapes, the natural world, the views she had from her balcony in Bespin were beautiful, but after many years she grew tired of the skies of Bespin. Tialya yearned to travel to far off planets and observe their landscapes, she wanted more than anything else to paint the oceans of Manaan, the forests of Endor, see the cities of Coruscant. As Tialya dreamed of the impossible, the more it dawned on her that it truly was impossible, a young girl on 17 with only enough credits to eat, no means of transport and certainly no knowledge of intergalactic travel would ever be able to leave her quaint home of Bespin.

A great wave of sadness rushed through Tialya as she picked up the small wooden box and traced its silver rims with her fingers; the small box was a gift from her father on his death bed three standard years ago. He had always believed her passion for art would take her to great places, he always told her to embrace that passion. The small box was made from a rare Tranti wood, its edges were lined with silver and her name was carved beneath its locks. That small art box, stained with many colours and inks, was the only link she had to her father, she had no photos or letters just that precious box and her many memories. Tialya never really had a close relationship with her mother due to her never being home, her mother had a job which took her all over the galaxy, Tialya was not too sure what her mother did because she never spoke about her work. But all she knew was that she was too busy to check in every so often or just that she didn't care, her mother Lyna never embraced her talent like her father did. She believed it was a waste of time, that painting pretty pictures had no real value to anyone. Lyna was a very harsh woman she tried to suppress Tialya's creativity as much as she could but her passion was far too strong.

Tialya placed her brushes into the precious box and carefully lifted the still wet canvas and placed it inside up against a wall to let it dry. Her apartment was full of paintings and empty canvases waiting to be filled, since her mother never really comes home, she took it upon herself to decorate. As she glanced around the living area she suddenly realized it had gone past midnight and into the early hours of the morning, hastily she made her way into the 'fresher and prepared herself of sleep.

-.-.-.-

The following morning Tialya was woken not by her alarm clock but by a call coming in through her comm. Sleepily Tialya stumbled her way to the blinking screen on her wall and pushed the transmission button. Tialya rubbed her eyes and looked at the screen; she was greeted by a familiar face. It was her close friend Kia; a usually happy and cheery face had a somewhat worried expression.

"What is it?" Tialya mumbled, trying to force of mind back to the land of the living.

"Sorry Tia did I wake you?" Kia asked, sounding slightly guilty to have disturbed her friend from rest.

"No, well yes but don't worry about it. Anyway what did you want?" Tialya said in between yawns.

"Oh right, well my mother came in this morning saying that she saw a bunch of Storm Troopers patrolling outside in the passageways. Apparently some guy has a large price on his head from Darth Vader himself, who also is apparently here in Bespin!" Kia's face suddenly dropped. "They have apparently been taking all the guys and forcing them to recruit to the Empire"

Tialya had heard that when they're looking for recruitments, they tend to take the more aggressive approach and forcing the men to joining with no real choice. Bespin had always been a seemingly safe place to live, there were no major crimes or criminals around, the thought of having chaos brought to their quiet status quo sent a mild rush of panic through Tialya's body. She looked at Kia through the screen, she looked worried, and Tialya knew that she had an older brother; she prayed for Kia that her brother would not be forced to join the Empire.

"Me and my mother were thinking, maybe it would be safer for you to some and stay with us. Since your mother never really seems to be home and well…" Kia paused not wanting to mention the death of Tialya's father, she wasn't entirely sure she had gotten over the pain she was in. "I-I just thought because those Troopers aren't exactly friendly"

Tialya smiled at her friend, she was thankful for her kindness but she didn't want to impose on her home, Kia's family were struggling with money as it was, with an extra person to care for it would put even more strain on their financial situation.

"Thank you for your kindness Kia, but I really don't want to impose. I'll be fine here, I'm on one of the quieter sectors of the unit, I'm sure there won't be many Troopers around. Plus I don't live with any men, so they won't come looking for recruitments here." Tialya smiled.

She was a very stubborn girl; once her mind was made up there was no changing it no matter what. Sometimes this got her into trouble, but Tialya won't change.

Kia looked at her slightly defeated. "Well alright… You usually seem to know what you're doing" Kia laughed. "But if anything happens I want to come here straight away!"

Tialya laughed. "Alright, I'll be sure too." And on that note, she closed the comm.

-.-.-.-

As Tialya made her way back to her room, as she walked she pondered about the life of a Storm Trooper, would it be exciting going to all those planets? Would they enjoy their work or their missions? Or were they just lonely men trying to get by? Despite all these questions she had, she felt some sort of envy of these Troopers, being able to travel the galaxies and planets and see the views of vast oceans and forests. She looked over to the long mirror in the corner of her room and tried to imagine herself in the white uniform of the Storm Troopers. Tialya's eyes widened as she suddenly realised what she was doing, how she could even allow such a thought to enter her mind was ridiculous. She shook the thoughts from her head and looked towards her clock. Panic surged through her body as she realised she was incredibly late for work.

"Lamarr is going to fire my for sure!" She whimpered to herself as she literally threw herself into the 'fresher to get ready.

Grabbing her tunic she pulled it over her head and ran out the door, down the passage ways and the flights of stairs the thoughts of the Storm Troopers patrolling the area had completely left her mind, her only thought was not to get fired, without this job she had nothing, no credits, no food, nothing. In her blind panic of running through the corridors she had completely lost regards for anyone else who happened to be walking through the passageways, until... Bang. Tialya was on the floor, on her back, dazed and confused to why she was staring at the ceiling. A tall helmeted man stood above her, in his stance, he was not happy about what had just happened. Tialya felt as if she had just ran into a brick wall, as the mysterious man came into her line of vision she froze. She saw the blaster pistol in a harness on his side. "Oh god, he's going to shoot me. I'm going to die. I thought getting fired this morning was bad, I'm going to get fired and going to die." As all these thoughts flew through her head she was sure she was going to die. As the man knelt down beside her she shut her eyes tight, but she did not feel the burn on being shot by a blaster, instead she felt two very strong hands grip her shoulders and in one swift movement she was placed back on her feet. Tialya's kneed were shaking, why wasn't she dead? She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the infamous T-shaped visor of the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett.

"Watch it kid." A deep gravelly voice echoed beneath his helmet. As he turned to walk away he spoke once again. "Next time I won't be so forgiving."

All Tialya could do was stand there, frozen, catatonic almost. She just ran into the most dangerous bounty hunter in the galaxy. He did not kill her, or beat her, he picked her up. She still couldn't get her head around what had happened. It was bizarre. Although what he had said had been understandable.


	2. Unlikely Friends

"You're late Tialya…Again" A large and rather irritated Besalisk stood across the counter in the in trading unit. Lamarr, Tialya's boss what a decent enough person, well decent enough to put up with Tialya's constant lateness, but as she could tell even his patients was wearing thin. He stepped forward from the counter giving her a look which demanded yet another explanation.

"Many apologies Lamarr, there had been a – "Tialya paused, choosing her words carefully; she couldn't exactly say she was nearly killed by a bounty hunter now could she?  
>"There was an accident in one of the passage ways. It took awhile for me to get around it." She dipped her head in an apologetic fashion, trying to look as sorry as possible.<p>

Lamarr huffed. "This can't keep happening; you know I am trying to run a business here don't you?" He began to raise his voice, until he realized there were customers waiting outside, too keep up a respectable image he regained his composure. "Do you know how difficult it is to keep having to repeat the same excuse over and over to our customers? 'Sorry ma'am our cashier is late again' 'sorry sir we cannot open for another few minutes.' It is starting to give us a bad reputation around here, we're losing credits." Lamarr sighed "I will give you one more chance Tialya, learn to be more punctual or I will be forced to find another employee."

"Yes sir, I'm sorry I will learn to keep a better track of time. I won't let it happen again" Tialya was relieved she had another chance, but time keeping was not one of her strong points. She would constantly lose track of time, day dream or zone out; she had to learn to be more disciplined.  
>Lamarr turned to her as he walked into one of the back rooms. "I like you kid don't let me down."<p>

Relieved and exhausted Tialya flopped over onto the counter, her forehead resting on her arms. "Thank the stars…" she thought. Not long after, customers had begun to enter the store and started to browse the items they had on offer.

A couple of hours had passed as she politely smiled to her customers selling them goods and making small talk as she scanned the items through, it was coming around to 12 standard and the store had quieted down. Tialya closed down the counter, removed her uniform and made her way to the back room.

"Lamarr I'm going to pick up something to eat, do you want anything?" Lamarr didn't look up from his papers, but he gave her the okay to leave the store. Nodding, Tialya made her way out from the store and into the cantina area, as she walked she was overwhelmed at how many officials and security officers were there. She even saw a group of Stormtroopers at a table. "They must be taking a brake too…"

Tialya felt slightly uncomfortable as she had to walk past that table with the chatting Stormtroopers, she felt as if she was going to be stopped for something, like the nervous feeling you get when walking past a security officer in one of the space ports. Keeping her head down, she tried to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, but her attempts were in vain as one of the Troopers got up and stood in her path.

Putting his arm onto the table across for her stopping any possible escape, he laughed "Hey there sweetie, you lookin' for somebody?" There was a slight annoying cockiness to his voice.  
>"Excuse me?" Tialya scowled at the frowning white helmet in front of her.<br>"I think she's alone" She heard another cocky voice laugh from behind her, she turned around as three more Stormtroopers circled around. "I think she's kinda cute, don't you?" One of them said as he moved his head in closer to hers. "Yeah, like a lost little cub" another continued.

Tialya tried to turn away but was stopped as the first Stormtrooper grabbed her arm tight. "Hey what the - ! Ouch! Let go!" She yelped as she tried to pull her arm away, but his grip only increased causing a substantial amount of pain. "Aww, don't you want to play?" The third trooper said as he twirled her hair around his finger.

"Don't touch me!" Tialya yelped as she pulled her head away, which only cause the trooper to pull out a few strands of her hair. Tears had begun to well up in her eyes, the pain in her arm was getting worse as the first Stormtrooper refused to let go, she was terrified, the cantina suddenly seemed so quiet and no one was even bothering to help her. She guessed they were just as frightened of the Stormtroopers as she was.

"Hey!" A voice called from behind the circle of Stormtroopers "what do you think you're doing? Get back to your posts!"

There was a chorus of curses and cuss words coming from the troopers. The one who had a hold of Tialya's arm had let go and led the others away, not wanting to get into any trouble with the commanding officers. Tialya's knees were trembling, she felt as if she could not hold her own weight as she suddenly collapsed into a head on the cantina floor; tears were now pouring from her eyes, she had never been so scared.

Suddenly one of the troopers turned around and faced Tialya slouched over on the floor. "We'll be back to 'play' later" and with that he pretended to blow a kiss from his helmet. Tialya felt her stomach knot and turn with fear as she heard him speak, she buried her head in her knees, and all she wanted to do was crawl away and hide for eternity.

"Are you alright?" She heard a voice call from behind her.  
>Tialya turned around, her eyes widened as she saw it was yet another Stormtrooper, but this one seemed slightly different, he didn't have that nasty feel about him and his voice was a lot softer than the others.<p>

She tried to move away from him, Tialya couldn't be sure if she could trust him, she certainly didn't want anything like that to happen again, the Stormtroopers were definitely bad news. The trooper knelt down beside and put his arms out, fear rushed through Tialya's body as she thought "Oh great he's going to try get at me too!"

"Oh no wait, hey, I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to help" He spoke again, this time he had a genuine sound of concern in his voice. "Here, take my hand."  
>Before Tialya could tell her body 'no' she found herself taking the hand of this trooper, she didn't know why but he had a calm manner about him, she didn't feel to be in any danger so she chose to trust him.<p>

"Okay, up you get." He said as he took her other hand and gently pulled her up. She was still little wobbly, to steady her he put a hand on her side, his sudden touch caused Tialya's face to heat up.  
>"T-thank you, I'm fine now. Really" Tialya stuttered moving away from his hand, she felt slightly disorientated. Trying to be harassed by four or more Stormtroopers to suddenly being helped by another was certainly odd. She really was having a very bizarre day.<p>

"I wouldn't worry too much about those guys; they're just some hard heads who think the uniform allows them to do whatever they want. We're not all like that." The trooper shrugged. "But there's always one isn't there." Then he laughed "I'm Issac by the way." He put out his hand gesturing her to shake it. In which Tialya returned the gesture. 

"I'm Tialya" She replied, a smile had now crept onto her face.


	3. Thief!

Walking back into her workplace, Tialya called into the backroom asking Lamarr if he was ready to re-open up shop. After she was given the ok, she flicked the sign back over to read 'open' and settled herself down behind the counter.

Looking down at her arm, she had noticed that there was a hand shaped bruise developing on the top of her arm. Rubbing it, she felt a small amount of pain, grumbling, she cursed the Stormtroopers under breath but regained her composure as another few customers had entered the shop.

"Excuse me miss?" A young man said as he approached the counter. "I'm looking for a spare comlink part for a 74-Z Speederbike"  
>Tialya gave an odd look to the man, living in Bespin, no one really had any use for Speederbikes seeming as they would plummet thousands of feet to the ground below is they were used outside of the city.<p>

Tialya snapped out of her thoughts realising she had to answer the man standing at the counter. "Oh! Uhh I'm not sure, I might have something in the back but I can't really promise anything. Let me go and have a look for you." Tialya turned her back to the man.  
>"Alright, thank you miss." The man smiled as she left for the back room.<p>

Tialya walked into the backroom where Lamarr was still working, writing down notes and shuffling through papers. "Hey Lamarr, I got a guy there asking for a comlink for a 74-Z Speederbike."  
>Lamarr looked up from his papers and gave Tialya the exact same look she gave to the man behind the counter. "What in the world would someone be doing with a Speederbike in Bespin?" Lamarr looked around through some drawers, and in a few boxes that were scattered around the floor of his desk.<p>

Tialya looked around the work tops and around some old second-hand parts for ships and so on, maybe hoping to find some sort of a comlink, or something similar. "Nope, can't find one anywhere" Lamarr finally said and he fell back into his seat returning his attention to the papers in front of him. "Ahh, same here no such luck" Tialya sighed, annoyed at the fact she had lost a potential sale.

When she made her way back to the counter she had noticed that the man had gone, looking around and out the window, she saw no sign of him. Suddenly she had a very horrible feeling at the pit of her stomach, she rushed over to the till, seeing that the edges were slightly discoloured as if it had been singed or burned, flinging the draw out she stood there dumbstruck, all the credits had gone. They were left with nothing; all their profits from the day were gone.

"That little thief!" Tialya slammed the draw shut, snapping her head towards the back door. "What am I going to tell Lamarr…?" She stood there, trying to think of some form of explanation for what had happened when Lamarr suddenly came through the door.  
>"What did you tell the- -Tialya? What's the matter?" Lamarr looked at her, concerned about her complete lack of complexion.<p>

Tilting his head he noticed the discoloured edges of the till and his faced dropped. "Everything's gone" She finally managed to say. "He took all the credits, everything." Tialya's heart was pounding against her chest; she was going to be fired for sure.

Lamarr's face very suddenly turned very hard, she had no idea what he could be thinking, what he going to fire her, go berserk, yell at her for being so careless as to leave that man alone in the store? He looked at Tialya with a stony expression "Go home Tialya." He turned his back to her and walked back into the back room.

.x.x.x.x.

Making her way back to her apartment Tialya was worried about what Lamarr might do, that man had quite a temper on him. She just hoped that he didn't go on some mad rampage and destroy half the shop, or taken out one of the blasters they kept in the back and gone on the hunt for that man, not that she cared about him. He stole from them. She cursed him under her breath as she walked.

"Tialya" She heard a somewhat familiar voice call behind her. Turning around she saw a Stormtrooper speed up his pace to catch up to her. Her stomach dropped slightly as this trooper approached her.

"It's me. Isaac" He said, has he noticed her tense when stood in front of her. "From the Cantina?" Tialya smiled remembering the kind Stormtrooper who helped up. "Isaac!" She beamed "You frightened me for a second; I thought you were one of the other troopers." She looked him up and down.

He looked exactly the same as the other troopers, they all did, and there were no makings on his uniform to take him away from the others.

Isaac laughed uncomfortably, "sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you" he shifted awkwardly in front of Tialya. "Um, hey I just wanted to ask if…Well… You wanted to meet me, tomorrow? I'm off duty so…"

Tialya felt her heart skip for a second, was he…Asking her out? She didn't realise she had taken so long to answer him. "I-if you don't want to I completely understand. You know what it was stupid of me to ask in the first place I'll just- -" 

"Oh! No it's fine" She started to smile at his awkwardness; she thought it was kind of cute. "I'd love to, anyway it's the least I could do for you, since you helped me earlier" A sudden thought crossed her mind, if she were to meet him tomorrow, will he be in uniform? How will she know who he is? Even if he wasn't, she still doesn't know what he looks like.

"Ahah! That's great, so I guess I'll meet you in the Cantina around 12 standard?" Tialya couldn't tell if he was smiling or not behind his frowning helmet but she assumed he was. "Yeah, sounds great!" She smiled. "Oh!" Tialya had a sudden idea. "Take this" She removed a silver pendant from her neck and placed it in his hands. It was a gift from her father but somehow she knew she could trust Isaac with it.

"What's this for?" He looked at the delicate necklace hanging between his gloved fingers.  
>"It's a pendant; wear it tomorrow, so I know who you are" Pleased with her sudden cleverness, she gave Isaac a wave before making her way down the corridor to her apartment.<p>

"Don't be late!" Isaac called after her.

Tialya giggled to herself, giving him one last wave as she walked, thinking to herself. "I never really was good at being early." 


End file.
